


The Fisherman's Son

by saidtheticktockman



Category: Hunger Games Series - All Media Types, Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins, The Hunger Games (Movies)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-17
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-01-03 20:15:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,554
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21185351
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saidtheticktockman/pseuds/saidtheticktockman
Summary: lure/l(j)ʊə/noun1. something that tempts or is used to tempt a person or animal to do something."the film industry always has been a glamorous lure for young girls"2. a type of bait used in fishing or hunting.+++Also known as, the one where Finnick Odair wins the Hunger Games, eats sugar cubes, and deals with WAY too much shit for a fourteen-year-old.





	1. the trident

Before I was a prince or a God or the Capitol’s darling, Finnick Odair was nothing but the name of the fisherman’s son. It was on a hot summer day, when the white-hot sun burned my back and I grew tired of the same swarms of girls swooning over me, when I decided that was a bad thing. 

Okay, fine, I'll admit it - spearing fish was always pretty awesome. But they only swum my way on the luckiest of days, and I couldn’t bear standing still and keeping quiet long enough to catch more. Even though I was great with a trident (better than half the people on our fleet, Mom said, and that was a pretty epic feat for a seven-year-old) and a faster swimmer than any of them, I wasn’t a good fisherman, and it bugged me. 

Maybe it was because the careers for kids who’d grown up on the docks were so limited that I’d had enough of that life. If I wanted to stay, I needed something local - I’d only been away from home twice, once to see my grandmother and the other my ex-girlfriend Tamika, and both had ended disastrously - and as well as being a terrible fisherman, I couldn’t wrap my head around mechanics for the life of me. That left me with, well, nothing but low-paying guard shifts and the occasional odd trader job, which wasn’t much of a life. And from the idealistic perspective of a child? Well, you might as well decide to jump off a cliff and save yourself the trouble. 

I already knew what some of the kids were going to choose. My older brother Mitch was an obvious fishing candidate, and so was his boyfriend Roland (I swear I’d thought he was mute for the first two months that he’d dated), while Arnold was already teaching some of the older children some engineering basics. Everybody else seemed to be good at something, and it sure didn’t feel like my fault that mine was something I’d never be able to use.

The only kid who was like me (see: useless) was this girl named Jen Driscoll, and aside from being two years older than me, she was as scary as the Underworld’s Lord himself. Her mother had won the Hunger Games twenty-something years ago, and that family hadn’t shown much of themselves in the district since. Even when she did make her way to the beach, she often sat in the shade, reading a book in the shade or something equally stupid. For a kid from 4, I thought, even back then, she sure didn’t touch a lot of water. 

But once in a blue moon, she’d find her way to the beach, and that day, she didn’t slip past my fingers.

At first, she didn’t notice me; she was reading again, some weird book with too many words and not enough pictures, and when she did look up, she didn’t seem to particularly care. If anything, she seemed somewhat annoyed by my presence, and as a kid who had spent his entire life in his small town’s spotlight, I hadn’t exactly gotten used to being unwanted.

“What do you want?”

She raised a thinly-plucked brow at me as I struggled to find an answer - what exactly did Finnick Odair, the star child of Poseidon’s Valley, want with a near-social recluse such as her? I opened my mouth, but no words came out (probably because I was an idiot but also because Jen was terrifying), so I plopped down on the ground next to her. Sensing that I didn’t have an answer, she let out a laugh that was far too mature to have plausibly come from a girl barely reaching five feet. “So, what the fuck are you still doing here?”

I glanced around us, made sure nobody else was listening. “You’re not supposed to say that,” I told her quietly, leaning over to peek at the book she was holding. It was still boring, even from up close, but now I noticed that the main character was a shapeshifter (whose alter ego doubled as a love interest in a weird plot involving time travel that I couldn’t quite wrap my head around), had a ridiculously unpronounceable name, and a sidekick who could shrink to the size of a guppy. I reconsidered: it was a wonder Jen wasn’t more weird by the looks of it. 

Her reply was pretty straight forward - “says who?” - and, even though I knew for a fact that you couldn’t use swear words unless you were really hurt or once on your birthday, I couldn’t really argue with it.

“So,” I said instead of answering, trying and failing to seem half as mature as she came across. “Why don’t you ever go outside?”

Looking back on it, that _definitely_ came across as rude instead - I never had much tactfulness to go with the obvious good looks - but to her credit, she didn’t comment on it. “I am outside,” she said instead, waving in the direction of the ocean. “What, does your house look like this, too?”

“You know what I mean.”

“No, I really don’t. I just don’t see the point in going around swimming or pretending to fish or whatever. It’s not like I’m going to end up doing any of that stuff, anyway.”

It was my turn to be confused: _that stuff_ was pretty much the only things she could do, if she didn’t want to end up starving to death or begging on the streets for scraps like Old Man Charlie used to do before the Peacekeepers caught him. “So, what, you’re planning to stay with your parents for the rest of your life? What about when you die? Or are you planning to write the next novel about _literally eff-ing yourself_?” Because, yup, you guessed it, I was still too chicken to drop the hard f-bomb. 

Jen pulled away like she’d just been stung.

“Stop spying on me, stupid. Lords, Finnick - no, I don’t think I’m going to write a book, even if it would be pretty awesome if I did,” she said. I couldn’t argue. In fact, I made up my mind right then and there that if I ever learnt half the hard words that the author was using, I’d read whatever she wrote short of grocery lists. “I’m going to be a Victor just like my mom.”

I looked at her skeptically. “Doesn’t that mean you have to kill people?” I said. I sounded so wimpy, but I couldn’t help myself - the thought of Jen murdering anybody was _way_ out of my comfort zone. 

“Twenty-three people are going to die no matter what we do, and one person is going to get really, really famous. Why shouldn’t it be me?” she replied, flipping a wave of blonde hair that fit right in the sea of 4’s golden locks. Then, as an afterthought: “plus, I’m killer with a spear. What about you, pretty boy? Something tells me you’re not much of the fishing type, either.”

And - finally, untethering a fish that was begging to be let loose - I let a grin break across my face.

“I guess I’m alright with a trident.”


	2. anything, anything

“Have you got anything for me, boy?” a voice coos, and I know it’s meant for me. The residents of Poseidon’s Valley have had fourteen years to learn my name (it’s quite a close-knit community, so you’ll begin to keep tabs on everyone if you live there long enough), but they all seem to have their own little nicknames for me. Finnick Odair - see: _boy_, see:_ charmer_, see: _darling_. See: anything but the name his parents gave him, really. Anything possessive works too - _my love, my angel, my little treat_ \- but they never really seem to catch on. People don’t like the thought of sharing me, I guess. 

I push my way through a gaggle of long-bearded fishermen and find Asherah Harmon, leaning on a post with a sly grin. Twenty-one and with blonde curls running down to her plump hips, she’s in no shortage of admirers, but she’s taken a special interest in me from the day we first met, when I was a measly boy of twelve begging for scraps. I remember she gave me three loaves of bread for some fraying yarn, a more than generous trade, and I’ve taken a liking to her ever since. As far as I know, she might have saved my family from starvation with her offerings.

“What’s the matter, doll?” she purrs the second I come over, putting a suntanned hand over my shoulder, and I realize I haven’t been putting on my usual smile. I quickly amend my mistake and take her other hand in mine, hoping my touch will make up for it, but the crease between her eyebrows doesn’t fade as I caress her. “Nervous about today?”

I’m not, but considering she just gave me the perfect out to explain my awkwardness, I just bite my lip and nod. “Yeah, a little,” I say, leaning into her like one would a confidant, and whisper: “I’m not sure if they’re going to pick me.”

People expect me to be worried about today’s Reaping, but not for the reasons that, say, the Millers (one of the poorest families in town) would be. It’s only been a few years since the volunteer pool was empty and some dead-eyed kid with stacks of tesserae was sent into the arena, and even though there’s usually somebody willing to take your child’s place… well, I’ve been told it’s a special kind of dread.

It’s different for people like me. I’ve been expected to volunteer ever since I began blabbing about it that day on the beach, and since people heard the news about my brother, it’s only been a matter of days until the next time I was eligible. And even though we treat our victors like Gods if they come home, we all know the odds. Most likely, the two kids you send to the Capitol don’t ever come back. I’d have to be out of my mind to say I wasn’t scared. But it’s true, I’m not. I’ve felt some sort of dissonant serenity about the whole thing for a while now. Twenty-four go in, one comes out. 

But Asherah only laughs at my so-called confession. “Look, sweetheart, you’ve got nothing to be worried about. One look at that beautiful face… they’re bound to pick you, love, I just know it.”

She’s right. This isn’t me being cocky or anything, but I’ve got a pretty good feeling that Aurelia Stern will pick me as a volunteer, even though it’s the first year I’ll even try for it. I’ve got all the traits of a victor (or so Jen says), and although nobody’s ever won on charm before, I think I stand a chance. I mean, it’s helped me survive this far, right?

Speaking of: I’m not out on the docks for pleasure. I sweet talk Asherah for a few minutes before steering the conversation to the pickled herring and cloth in my burlap sack, and she pays generously for them - twenty marks and a bottle of rubbing alcohol, plus she doesn’t ask where I got the fish from or whether the Peacekeepers had approved it - before wishing me good luck at the Reaping. I repeat her words - _may the odds be ever in your favour_ \- and kiss her hand like I’ve seen my parents do when they thought I wasn’t looking. She promptly blushes a light pink and implies she should get going, so I offer to walk her home even though I don’t really want to. She accepts. 

The Harmon family lives on the far west side of the Valley, which means it’s a long walk from the east, where my family’s two-story cottage is located. It also means they’re, for the lack of a better word, filthy rich - at least compared to the hand my family’s been dealt. Among the town’s population, I’d say only ten percent can afford to live there. In comparison, twenty percent can’t afford most housing at all, and have to settle for an apartment in a block on the Main Square. As for the other seventy? Well, that’s what we have the east for. It’s cramped, sure, but it’s nothing to complain about. Not if you’ve seen the beggars pleading to spend one night inside the warmth, that they’ll do _anything, anything_ if you even grant them an inch of space. 

It took me a while to get what a_nything, anything_ meant. But now I understand why the girls (and some of the guys, too, but not nearly as often as you’d think) walk crouched into themselves, like they feared our smiles would cut them open. Sometimes, I wish I could be like that, too - head down, shoulders slouched, hidden away from the world - but I don’t think I’d survive it. Wherever those people go, it sounds like a hard place to come back from. 

Asherah, on the other hand, struts like the world is hers for the taking. It’s how I’d imagine the president to walk, maybe even a victor. But some random merchant’s daughter who’s only pride is being rich? I sound bitter - and like one of those losers spraying graffiti and hollering treason from the docks - but it just doesn’t seem fair to make me a murderer or corpse because I was born in the wrong part of town. I don’t know. I’m tired, anyway.

  
Thankfully, if I looked sour or resentful, my companion didn’t catch on. “What are you wearing for the Reaping, darling?” she asks instead, hand on her hip, and I bite my tongue. 

An innocuous question. _What are you wearing?_ It’s just the type of thing girls talk about, but even that manages to rub me the wrong day. _What are you wearing?_ as if it’s as easy as picking my favorite color from a sea of newly-bought fashion. _What are you wearing?_ like my family doesn’t have to pinch every penny to afford the flat-ironed shirts that are waiting at home. Maybe that’s not even what she means by it. I don’t think it matters.

Still, I need to turn on the charm one last time before I could be heading off to the Capitol, so I twist my lip into a smile and let out a chuckle. “I’m thinking a shirt. Maybe - just _maybe_ \- some pants to go with them. What do you think?”

“I dunno, Odair.” She swats me on the shoulder. “Who needs pants when they’ve got a body like yours?”

“Well, uh - uh, yeah. Ha. That’s funny,” I mumble. So far, Asherah and I haven’t even kissed yet (cheek pecks don’t count), and the thought of doing anything more with her makes me… uncomfortable, I guess. Nervous. But it doesn’t matter what I want; I know what she does. “You’re a charming girl.”

“And you’re a siren’s song. Aw, Finnick, don’t get all flustered. You’re surprisingly shy for such a flirt.”

“Maybe you make me nervous,” I say, which isn’t a lie. “Maybe I like you.”

“Don’t be a cornball and walk me home, sweetheart.” Then, softly: “I like you, too.”

And, yep, I look like a total asshole right now. I don’t even know why I told her that even though it wasn’t really true (I _do_ like her, but I’m not sure if it’s anything romantic). Maybe I knew she expected it, maybe I was a calculating monster looking for one more sponsor in the arena, maybe I wanted one last crush before I won or died… I don’t know. But I said it, and now I have to stand by it. Plus, if you’re looking for a lover, Asherah’s beautiful and smart and makes good money. I could do a lot worse. 

Still, that’s the end of that conversation for me. I keep my mouth painfully shut as Asherah babbles on about clothes and floral arrangements for some party out of town, responding with only the most innocent of statements (_that’s lovely, sounds amazing, I bet you’ll look beautiful_) and try to think of anything but tonight. Trust me, I’m usually more sociable than this - but Reaping Day does something funny to everyone, and that’s if you’re not planning on leaving your home for the Capitol. Shopkeepers mark their prices a little lower. The kids next door won’t poke fun of you as much, all too worried about what’s to come. Mothers hug their children extra tight today. 

I’m not sure just how long we walk. Somewhere between thirty minutes and an hour, I guess, but I barely notice. The thing about Asherah is that she never runs out of things to say, and even if she talks about the most boring stuff imaginable, it’s hard not to get hooked simply because of the way she says them. I’m not sure what that means in the _do I like Asherah?_ debate, only that when we reach her house, I’m actually disappointed I can’t hear another twenty minutes of her ramblings.

“Well,” she says as we reach the brown gates that guard the Harmon family’s residence. “It was good seeing you, Finnick.”

The wind whistles of things unspoken, but all I say is, “it was good seeing you, too.”

“May the odds be ever in your favor, you know?” she adds melodically. “Although, knowing you, I doubt you need odds.”

I smile cockily, both because I probably am a bit arrogant and because it’s expected of me. “May the odds be in your favor, indeed.”

+++

My little brother sleeps like an angel when I sneak back into the house. I check his temperature - it’s gone up again, but only by a number or two - and replace the damp cloth on his head. Poor guy. Hector’s been sick for over three months now. Signs aren’t looking good, but when he’s awake, he’s too delirious to know it. I need to remember to pray for him.

Every district has the same sickness now. Everyone but the Capitol. They’ve got some cure-all up there, a little white vial with a fluid that’ll get you back on your feet in days. One hundred percent success rate. 

The problem? It’s super expensive. Like, what-my-family-spends-in-a-year expensive. Even if we drove ourselves to near-starvation, we couldn’t get enough money to buy half of it. Behind closed doors, Glan (my older brother) thinks it’s a strategy: they don’t care if they lose some of their workers, not as long as we know we’re disposable. He’s been saying that kind of stuff ever since he got together with his boyfriend, and even though I don’t know how I feel about it, I’m glad he doesn’t say it in public. I’ve seen some things happen to people who were caught saying something half as bad.

I don’t suppose it matters if I believe what my brother does. The fact is, even with me and Glan doing odd jobs whenever we can, there’s only one real way to afford it: if I went away and returned a victor.

And, yeah, it’s a long shot. But I was going to volunteer anyway - not _now_, obviously, I don’t think anyone’s won at fourteen - and, arrogance aside, the odds were never that great to begin with. Once I knew what I had to do, there was really no other option. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t at least try.  
.  
While I’m in the kitchen, I make myself a bowl of oats (plain - we’re even out of sugar) and try not to grimace at the texture. Then, because I’m still hungry and we have enough to spare, boil some water and swirl it in my mouth until my stomach calms down. I wonder what kind of food they’ll have in the Capitol. Lobsters, probably, the kind we trap but aren’t allowed to lay hands on before they’re shipped to the Capitol. The fancy cheeses from 10. Sweets that melt off your tongue, not the hard-boiled garbage that sells for two marks a piece. Coffee grounds.

I drool. But the shelves are almost empty, and my greediness now will surely result in someone going hungry later today, so I slam the cupboard doors shut and force myself away. I’m just about to start getting ready when I hear a sleepy voice pipe up from the bedrooms. 

“Finnick?”

My first thought - _ghosts!_ \- almost gives me a heart attack, but I quickly recognize my brother’s voice. It’s changed, but not as much as you’d expect it to. Like, if someone took Hector and dialed him down to twenty percent. I creep over and watch him stir from under the pile of blankets that Mom’s knitted for him. “Yeah?” I ask, softly, trying not to stir him from his state of semi-consciousness.

I barely catch his next words, but I’m glad I do. And, yeah, I’m sure every tribute has a moment like this, and in fact mine might be even less heart-wrenching because I volunteered and actually chose this goddamn thing, but he’s my brother and I don’t care if a million people have it worse, I just want him to be happy.

Because my little brother turns, almost as in sleep, and whispers, “come home.”


End file.
